The Caprices by Sabina Murray Page B

rice.”
    “What if you keep losing?”
    Sean nodded in an emphatic, disgusted way. “They let each other starve. They con each other out of life.”
    Bob thought about this for a minute. “Sometimes, the weak make way for the strong,” he whispered, but Sean did not hear. He was too involved sharpening a spoon edge—which was the only surgical instrument in camp—for the doctor. Sean went on to talk about the Poms and their divine right, the Dutch and their cowardice, worked his way up to the Korean guards, and then the Japanese themselves. But Bob knew that among all of these, the real enemy was time and the real war was between its passage and one’s body.
    “Take care in the not breaking of the skin,” the Dutch doctor said. “Infection likes it. That is why the tropical ulcer.” Easier said than done. Down the river, the Aussie doctor lopped off the limbs infected with the deep pussing wounds, legs mostly. But the Dutch guy, he knew better. On the railroad, they had marines in place of anesthesia. Four marines, one for each limb, and a good friend to hold one’s head. And the spoon nicely sharpened to scoop away the dead flesh, which ate the living. And now Bob, ready for surgery, lying flat on his back pinned down, Paul at his head the way Bob had been for him before. Bob had seen this done many times and his fear was that of one who knew. He could not scream loud enough. Men died hiding their ulcers, more fearful of the cure than of the disease. He was not one of these. His scream rang out. His life held on in the mud and terror and could not escape. When the marines finally released him andhe looked into the doctor’s eyes, which were calm and sympathetic, he thought that little had been done to save him. The truly dead flesh was within, hidden beneath the layers of taut skin, tissue, and bones, in a place where the doctor’s spoon could not remove it.
    Of the three in their group that were left, Paul was the sickliest. His battles with amebic dysentery were bloody and hard fought. Sean watched over him like a mother. He would sit by Paul’s bedside, filled with fear and worry.
    “You know, Bob, this is all right for us, but not for Paul. He was at the university. He studied physics,” Sean said.
    “Still doesn’t make it right for anyone,” said Bob.
    “No, listen. He signed up with me because he thought I was too bloody stupid to make it alone.”
    “What’d he think we’d be doing out here? Solving problems?”
    “Oh, I dunno. Paul shouldn’t be here.”
    Which made it seem to Bob as though Sean found the situation tolerable for the rest. Paul took a turn for the worse and was delirious much of the time. Bob found it strange when he entered the hut one evening and found Paul alone, without his usual nurse.
    “How’re you doing, Paul?” asked Bob.
    “Debloodylightful,” said Paul. Profanity put Bob’s mind at ease. Sean appeared at the door of the hut. At first he revealed himself in silhouette, but after he stepped out of the shadow, Bob saw that Sean’s shorts were gone and in their place was a kind of G-string—a loose swatch of cloth that draped around his loins like a diaper.
    “Now there’s one the midwife should have strangled,” said Paul.
    Sean was smiling. He made his way over quickly and produced two small bricks wrapped in banana leaves. “One for Paul, and one for Bob and me to split. It’s sugar.”
    “And where are your shorts?” asked Paul.
    “Covering some Burmese backside,” he replied.
    Paul struggled onto one elbow. He looked over at Sean and managed a smile. “Out of gratitude for your generosity, I will recover.” And he lived.
    Paul looked terrible, sicker than the sick, emaciated to the point that it was almost comic that he wasn’t dead. Paul had one tooth left, sticking up from his lower gum like a tombstone. His shorts had rotted off his body and he too, like Sean, was now in a diaper, which showed off every protrusion and hollow. He became the